New sanctions on North Korea

23/12/2017

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Photo credit: Reuters

US President Donald Trump's new national security strategy is a "criminal document" that seeks the "total subordination of the whole world to the interests of the US", North Korea's foreign ministry says.

"This has fully revealed that 'America first policy' which the gang of Mr Trump is crying out loudly about is nothing but the proclamation of aggression aimed at holding sway over the world according to its taste and at its own free will," a foreign ministry spokesman said on Friday, according to a statement released by state media outlet KCNA.

In the document, announced on Monday, Mr Trump said Washington had to deal with the challenge posed by North Korea's weapons programmes.

The UN Security Council on Saturday morning (NZ time) unanimously voted for new sanctions on North Korea, citing its latest missile tests.

It's a move that analysts said could have a significant impact on the isolated country's struggling economy.

The resolution seeks to ban nearly 90 percent of refined petroleum product exports to North Korea by capping them at 500,000 barrels a year and demands the repatriation of North Koreans working abroad within 12 months.

In November, North Korea called for a halt to what it called "brutal sanctions", saying a previous round imposed after its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on September 3 constituted genocide.